Guest post

Author Guest Post: “Why I Write About Messy Teens—And Why We Should Honor the Mess Inside of Us All” by Jen Ferguson, Author of A Constellation of Minor Bears

by
Share

“Why I Write About Messy Teens—And Why We Should Honor the Mess Inside of Us All”

One of the lies we tell each other is that the point of living is we’re supposed to get it all together. First off, I don’t know exactly what it is, and I worry it is maybe, act in a manner benefitting the patriarchy or the government, or even like what many older cis, het white people want everyone else to act like: speak English (but the right English), get a job (but the right job), work hard (but the right kind of hard), and don’t question why the work you do never results in exactly what you were told it would—in fact, stop asking questions entirely. I worry together means that an individual does this alone. I worry that all is never achievable, but it’s the thing we’re faced with, the thing we’ll fail at again and again, and worse yet, believe that we’ve failed, believe that we haven’t worked hard enough, haven’t done this simple thing everyone else seems to be doing.

And I worry that when we tell ourselves these lies as teachers, in our home life, our community life, and our school life, that we’re doing the work of socializing teens toward something we all know, in our hearts, doesn’t work well, and isn’t designed to work well for the large majority of us.

I am a teacher too.

I fight against telling my students this get it all together narrative, this hard-work-is-rewarded narrative, this we-live-in-a-meritocracy narrative every day.

After all, we know life is easier for everyone involved if young people would, for example, learn to submit their work on time.

But submitting things on time won’t save them, not really.

#

So, with this lie—get it all together—in mind, I write about messy teens. Teens who get to remain messy. Whose identities are hybrid, this-plus-this-plus-this, or whose identities are flexible the way gender identity is for many young people, or, for example, whose identities are radically changing the way a person’s perception of self needs to change after a 30-foot uncontrolled fall to the ground results in a traumatic brain injury. I write about teens who learn to love their mess. Teens who grow with their mess or into their mess, instead of getting it all together in the way that (Western ideas about) character development, as well as other power structures, might tell us we ought do see done in a novel.

My characters don’t always have the words or the skills to handle the world around them. But that is not their fault.

The world, it can be what’s wrong, what needs to change, too.

#

Let’s turn to my new book filled with messy teens, A Constellation of Minor Bears, out from HarperCollins’ Heartdrum imprint.

Meet Molly Norris-Norquay, an overachieving fat, maybe queer, Métis and white seventeen-year-old high school graduate, who is walking away from her life as fast as her feet can carry her 60-liter hiking pack and all the things she’ll need to successfully complete the Pacific Crest Trail.

At her high school graduation, the afternoon before her flight to San Diego, California, she says: “The anger inside me pulses like it has its own veins and arteries. The noise, the pressure, is overwhelming. A breeze brushes tulle against my heated skin. I want to crush something or run a 5K race or sit down in the grass and have a big cry, a full-fledged temper tantrum, and I have no idea which.”

I could tell you about Molly’s white brother Hank and his messiness, how he’s recovering from a sports-related traumatic brain injury, or about Hank and Molly’s best friend Tray and how he might look like he’s under control, behaving, following the rules, but he’s awfully messy too. And I could tell you about Brynn, another fat hiker, how she’s on the trail for the right reasons but walking away from her life at the same time.

Instead, I want to stay with Molly’s anger.

In A Constellation of Minor Bears, Molly gets to be angry, gets to be frustrated with her brother, her best friend, her parents, with other hikers, and the world at large, gets to be wrong and double-down, and she also gets to be right and wrong at the very same time. Molly is doing an incredible thing—walking 2,650 miles, from the US/Mexico border to the US/Canada border through mountain ranges in California, Oregon and Washington.

But she’s also barely managing it most days.

And if she’s learning anything, together, means relying on her community, her friends no matter the mess between them.

On the trail, all, means getting up and doing this hard thing over again. But sometimes all means taking a zero day—a day where a hiker walks exactly zero miles. Sometimes all means you leave the trail entirely, without finishing. Sometimes all means you find another trail.

#

I want to return to the idea that the characters I write about aren’t always able to handle the world around them, and the idea that supposes this is not their fault. Instead, it’s systems, power structures, the world around them that needs to change.

This is a critical perspective for activists who fight for a world where BIPOC and queer and trans people’s lives are full and rich and unencumbered by systems of power that tell us we are less, that tell us we don’t fit, that legislate against us, that encourage violence in word and action against us.

This perspective is foundational for fat and disability activism too. Bodies change throughout our lives. Bodies are messy in so many delightful ways. If living is anything, it’s the embodied experience of constant change, of becoming, of re-becoming.

I want to allow those of us who live in these messy, imperfect, most excellent bodies to not to have to tame ourselves, or shape ourselves to fit the world, but for the world to open up to all of us, to recognize living is not about containing our messiness, but existing in relationship with our mess and the world and all the other living and not-living things around us.

When messy teens grow up to be adults who get it all together we lose part of what makes us human.

Long live messy teens.

Long live the messy adults we become.

#

I’ll leave you with a short writing challenge for your students to play with in order to embrace mess.

  • Create a messy character. What makes them messy? How is their messy different from everyone else’s? Spend a few minutes here. Orchestrate a mess.
  • Now, get your character into trouble. What is the perfect trouble for their mess? Not to “fix” them, but to challenge your character.
  • They don’t need to get rid of their mess by the end of the story. See what parts of their mess they want to keep, what parts help them against their trouble, what parts of their mess should be celebrated.
  • Okay, now for the hard part: take a risk or two! Your risk should be something you consider risky. For example, if you always write in the first person (“I”) maybe you could try writing in the 2nd person (“You”). Your risk can be a content one too: what’s the story you’ve told yourself you aren’t brave enough to tell? What happens if you tell a story with a character you’re familiar with but you set it on a space station orbiting Mars or in a wheat field full of strange bugs or somewhere else that challenges your storytelling brain?
  • But really, your job here, today is to have some fun! Play, embrace the mess inside us and around us.

<3 Jen

Published September 24th, 2024 by Heartdrum

About the Book: Award-winning author Jen Ferguson has written a powerful story about teens grappling with balancing resentment with enduring friendship—and how to move forward with a life that’s not what they’d imagined.          

Before that awful Saturday, Molly used to be inseparable from her brother, Hank, and his best friend, Tray. The indoor climbing accident that left Hank with a traumatic brain injury filled Molly with anger.

While she knows the accident wasn’t Tray’s fault, she will never forgive him for being there and failing to stop the damage. But she can’t forgive herself for not being there either.

Determined to go on the trio’s postgraduation hike of the Pacific Crest Trail, even without Hank, Molly packs her bag. But when her parents put Tray in charge of looking out for her, she is stuck backpacking with the person who incites her easy anger.

Despite all her planning, the trail she’ll walk has a few more twists and turns ahead. . . .

Discover the evocative storytelling and emotion from the author of The Summer of Bitter and Sweet, which was the winner of the Governor General’s Award, a Stonewall Award honor book, and a Morris Award finalist, as well as Those Pink Mountain Nights, a Kirkus Best Book of the Year!

About the Author: Jen Ferguson is Michif/Métis and white, an activist, an intersectional feminist, an auntie, and an accomplice armed with a PhD in English and creative writing. Visit her online at jenfergusonwrites.com.

Thank you, Jen, for celebrating the messiness!

Author Guest Post: “Serving Students with Service” by Gayle Forman, Author of Not Nothing

by
Share

“Serving Students with Service”

When my oldest daughter was in middle school, she was required to complete a certain number of community-service hours to graduate. She could satisfy these by doing any number of things, volunteering at a pet shelter, tutoring younger children, hosting a bake sale and donating the proceeds to a cause. It’s a lovely idea—service as part of education—but why, I now wonder, was the community and the service considered separate from the classroom, separate from the academic part of her education?

Particularly when so many of the things she was learning in the classroom were, once you unpeeled a layer or two, indelibly linked to the idea of community and service. So many of the great movements of our time have been powered by community groups collectively pushing for change or resisting tyranny, be it abolitionists working to end slavery or resistance groups smuggling Jews out of Nazi-dominated Europe, both of which were things my middle schooler was learning about in her history and ELA classes. And it’s movements such as these that continue to be the engine for change, be it Greta Thunberg inspiring an international coalition of young people to push for climate or the Parkland students to prevent future school shootings.

It’s important that schools encourage service as an element of education but why not incorporate the idea of contributing and improving communities into the curriculum, showing how historical movements are not merely things that happened in the past, ancient ideas encased in marble, but a living breathing continuum that today’s young people will carry forward?

In Not Nothing, 12-year-old Alex initially volunteers at an assisted living community called Shady Glen, because of a court order—service as assignment. But after he meets a 107-year-old resident named Josey and begins to hear Josey’s wartime story of resistance—namely his love story with Olka, a woman who rose to the occasion of her life to become a hero who saved many lives—Alex begins to connect the historical to the personal, the then to the now. In doing so, he becomes inspired by the idea of rising to the occasion of his own life. If Olka could do it, could he? Could anyone? The answer, he learns, is a resounding yes.

Recognizing the power of Josey’s story, Alex and fellow volunteer Maya-Jade begin interviewing other elderly residents at Shady Glen, asking them to recount examples of when they “beat the odds. Accomplished something they didn’t think they could. When they rose to the occasion of their own lives.”

The pair learn about history through those who’ve lived it, and uncover quotidian and extraordinary acts of heroism in the people around them: There’s the understudy opera singer who wows an audience disappointed that star diva is ill, the man who dropped out of college for two years to help run his family’s farm when his father died, the woman who defied her discouraging family and went on to open a chain of successful restaurants, the young Navy seaman who rediscovered his first love his life—a fellow seaman—50 years on, when the world had opened up to allow their kind of love.

The stories are fictional but they mirror the kinds of stories I’ve heard when I’ve asked older people to share remarkable moments of their lives. They are meant to represent the wisdom that is out there, waiting to be shared.  At one point, after Maya-Jade interviews her own grandmother, she asks why her grandmother never told that story before. “I have,” replies her grandmother. “You just never listened.”

What would happen if we listened, if we asked, if we brought community service into the curriculum as the two-way street service nearly always is, benefitting the giver and the recipient. Could this deepen education and release history from its marble bust allowing young people to see today’s challenges as part of a continuum and feel empowered— both individually and collectively—to meet these challenges?

Educators, perhaps more than anyone else, invite young people to rise to the challenge each and every day. As an author, I am honored and humbled to help them in this life-changing work.

Published August 27th, 2024 by Aladdin

About the Book: “The book we all need at the time we all need it.” —Katherine Applegate, Newbery Award–winning author of The One and Only Ivan

In this multigenerational middle grade novel of hope, compassion, and forgiveness from #1 New York Times bestselling author Gayle Forman that is as timely as it is timeless, a boy who has been assigned to spend his summer volunteering at a senior living facility learns unexpected lessons that change the trajectory of his life.

Alex is twelve, and he did something very, very bad. A judge sentences him to spend his summer volunteering at a retirement home where he’s bossed around by an annoying and self-important do-gooder named Maya-Jade. He hasn’t seen his mom in a year, his aunt and uncle don’t want him, and Shady Glen’s geriatric residents seem like zombies to him.

Josey is 107 and ready for his life to be over. He has evaded death many times, having survived ghettos, dragnets, and a concentration camp—all thanks to the heroism of a woman named Olka and his own ability to sew. But now he spends his days in room 206 at Shady Glen, refusing to speak and waiting (and waiting and waiting) to die. Until Alex knocks on Josey’s door…and Josey begins to tell Alex his story.

As Alex comes back again and again to hear more, an unlikely bond grows between them. Soon a new possibility opens up for Alex: Can he rise to the occasion of his life, even if it means confronting the worst thing that he’s ever done?

About the Author: Award-winning author and journalist Gayle Forman (she/her/hers) has written several bestselling novels, including those in the Just One Day series, Where She Went, and the #1 New York Times bestseller If I Stay, which has been translated into more than forty languages and was adapted into a major motion picture. Her first middle grade novel, Frankie & Bug, was a New York Times Best Children’s Book of 2021. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, with her family.

Thank you, Gayle, for this call to service!

Author Guest Post: “A Walk in Nature: Science for the Very Young” by Julie Downing, Author of Hello, Sun

by
Share

“A Walk in Nature: Science for the Very Young”

Hello, Sun celebrates a day in the life of a busy forest. From dawn to dusk, the forest is full of animals, birds and insects, waking up, playing, building a nest, and resting in the shade. When the sun goes down, the animals cuddle up and fall asleep. Hello, Sun teaches the youngest reader about diurnal animals in a simple and poetic way.

One of the powers of a picture book is the way facts can be conveyed. By looking closely at the illustrations, children learn as much from art as they do from words. As the author/ illustrator, I spent a great deal of time researching animal habits and what a “normal” day was like for each of the different characters. The challenge was thinking about how to present the information in a way that resonates with the youngest readers.

Some of the scientific facts appear in the text, and other information is shown in the illustrations. For example, I discovered that hummingbirds use spiderwebs to construct their nests. The text describes the nest:

Wisps of hay,

silky thread.

Sticky heat,

mossy bed.

On the other hand, some spreads show information in the art. For example, I learned that hummingbirds sleep upside down. The “Stars peek out”  as readers see the male hummingbird asleep on a nearby branch. Looking carefully at the art,  readers discover a bear habitat, which insects fly near a pond and come upon turtles sleeping in stacks.

Hello, Sun is a companion book to Hello, Moon, published in 2021.  Hello, Moon, shows the same forest at night. Hello, Moon is full of nocturnal animals and illustrates what happens while most of us are asleep. I didn’t really intend to do two books, but after Hello Moon came out, I thought about that same forest and what was different in the daylight. It took some time to find my way into the second book. Two things helped me. One July day, I took a walk in Marin. It was a VERY HOT day (of course for a San Franciscan anything over 65 is hot.)  The forest literally shimmered. I thought about how different the feeling was between the forest in the daytime and the same cool forest at night. I thought about what type of activities diurnal animals do throughout the day. As the temperature rises, animals slow down, nap, and keep cool in the shade.

What is the best way to show the difference? Color is one way to show time of day as well as changing temperature. Color became an important element in Hello, Sun. However, I discovered it was much easier for me to paint a forest at night. All the blues and purples are my colors.

It was challenging to shift my normal palate for Hello, Sun. One day, I was at the DeYoung Museum in San Francisco and discovered a painting by the artist, Richard Mayhew. He was an African American artist who painted the most beautiful landscape paintings. What struck me was his color palette. He did not paint a green tree against a blue sky but instead painted these amazing purple, rust, and turquoise trees against orange and yellow skies. His landscapes captured the feeling of a forest on a hot, sticky day. I realized that color was my way into this book. When I painted the art for Hello Sun, I literally had a book of the Richard Mayhew’s work on my desk and borrowed some of his palates, the intense yellow that runs throughout the book was inspired by Mayhew’s paintings.

Children are naturally curious and eager to learn, and picture books are the perfect way to connect to the world around them. I hope Hello, Sun and Hello, Moon inspire families to take their own nature walks and think about the animals that share their space. Are they asleep? Are they awake? What might you see, hear or feel if you took the same walk at a different time of day?

Published April 16th, 2024 by Neal Porter Books

About the Book: Follow the sun and the creatures it shines on from dawn to nightfall in this companion to Hello, Moon, from Parent’s Choice Award Winner Julie Downing.

Hello, sun!
Goodbye, night!
Sunrise chill,
pale dawn light.

Julie Downing’s signature artwork washes each page in a symphony of blue, green and purple foliage; the sky shifts from amber to pink, buttercup-yellow, or darkest indigo. Sleepy bears, rabbits, deer, and other animals rise from cozy dens and burrows to greet the day.

From the award-winning creator of Hello, Moon and Night in the City , Hello, Sun features short and simple sentences perfect for a bedtime story or for children building confidence in reading on their own. Whether you’re starting the day or ending it, don’t miss this engrossing walk with the sun and the creatures it shines on.

About the Author: Julie Downing is the illustrator of more than forty-five picture books and a professor of watercolor and children’s book illustration. She lives in California.

Thank you, Julie, for this reminder to play into the curiousness of children!

Author Guest Post: “Integrating Storytelling with Science Education” by Serene Chia, Author of Mommy, Mommy, Where is the Moon?

by
Share

“Integrating Storytelling with Science Education”

How do we use children’s picture books to spark our kid’s interest in science? As a children’s author and a fan of kids’ books, I’ve discovered that storytelling can be a magical tool to engage young minds. Combining stories with science is a great way to keep little ones excited about learning.

Here are 3 ways to start their scientific journey through the power of stories and child-led inquiry.

  • Making Science Simple. Science doesn’t have to be complicated. Stories can make tricky ideas easy for kids to understand. In Charlotte the Scientist Finds a Cure, Charlotte’s journey to find out what is making the animals sick captures children’s interest and teaches them about the scientific method to ask questions and form a hypothesis. Charlotte’s determination and problem-solving skills are depicted in a way that children can easily grasp.
  • Encouraging Curiosity. One of the best ways to teach science is through student-led inquiry. Encourage your students to ask questions and explore answers. In Ada Twist, Scientist, Ada’s relentless curiosity to find out what is causing a smelly smell drives the story, prompting kids to ask their own questions and seek answers. This book is fantastic for teaching children the value of persistence and inquiry in science.

    Similarly, in If I Built a School, Jack’s imaginative ideas about what a school could look like encourage students to think creatively and ask “what if” questions. Jack’s wild ideas, like a library where books come alive, can inspire kids to dream big and explore how their own creative solutions could be realized. These books collectively show that curiosity is the starting point for scientific exploration.

  • Mixing Different Subjects. Stories can seamlessly blend different subjects like science and reading. In Over and Under the Pond, the narrative combines scientific facts with beautiful storytelling, helping kids improve their reading while learning about nature. This multidisciplinary approach makes learning more interesting and helps kids see the connections between different subjects. It encourages them to think critically and creatively, integrating knowledge from various fields.

Recommended Books for Starting Children on Their Scientific Journey

Charlotte the Scientist Finds a Cure by Camille Andros

The story emphasizes the importance of family support in scientific endeavors, with Grandpa Bunny telling Charlotte, “Charlotte, you are going to make a real difference in the world.” My 3-year-old son loved the bunny family and the grandpa who wasn’t well, while my 6-year-old daughter was fascinated by finding out what was making all the animals sick. She learned new words like quarantine and experiment.

Ada Twist, Scientist by Andrea Beaty

This book encourages kids to start asking questions when they encounter problems. Ada’s journey to discover what was causing a stink in her house shows how persistent inquiry can lead to scientific discovery. The story highlights the importance of family support in encouraging curiosity and problem-solving.

Over and Under the Pond by Kate Messner

The book paints a beautiful picture of an afternoon spent exploring the ecosystem of a pond. Living in Singapore, we learned about animals we don’t have here, like the mink, moose, and American goldfinch. The illustrations, such as a view from above the trees looking down at the mother and son rowing their boat, add an immersive visual element that helps kids learn about different species and their habitats.

If I Built a School by Chris Van Dusen

This imaginative book follows a boy named Jack with the wildest imagination as he describes to his teacher, Miss Jane, how he would design a school. His ideas include puppies, a zoo, a robot that makes lunches, and hover desks that glide around. My kids especially loved the part where the library had books that came alive, like Jack and the Beanstalk, with a beanstalk that grew when you opened the book. This story sparks interesting discussions and encourages kids to think creatively about their learning environment.

Conclusion. Storytelling is a powerful tool for teaching science. It makes learning easy, fun, and engaging. You don’t need complicated setups to spark curiosity in your students. Use storytelling to create a rich, engaging learning environment. Books like Charlotte the Scientist Finds a Cure, Ada Twist, Scientist, Over and Under the Pond, and If I Built a School are excellent starting points. By incorporating these stories into your lessons, you can inspire the next generation of scientists and explorers!

Mommy, Mommy, Where is the Moon?
Author: Serene Chia
Illustrator: Sinem Kilic Rabito
Published June 3rd, 2022

About the Book: Few things in life are as precious as the bond shared between a mother and her daughter.

Kaitlyn loves spending her nights lying beside her mother as they search the sky for the Moon. Sometimes they find it. Sometimes they don’t! That doesn’t stop them from laughing and talking about cool moon facts like why it changes shape and hides sometimes. Like Neil Armstrong, Kaitlyn believes she can also fly to the Moon!

Beautifully illustrated and filled with inspiration, Mommy, Mommy, Where is the Moon is a must-read for every child.

Parents and educators, this book is great for:

IMPROVING PARENT-CHILD RELATIONSHIP – Engage your child and improve the parent-child relationship.

INTRODUCING SCIENCE AND STEM CONCEPTS – Introduce your child to science and STEM concepts in a fun and easy-to-understand way.

ENCOURAGING IMAGINATION – Encourages your child to dream big and use their imagination.

For a free lesson plan and activity sheets for preschoolers, visit serenechia.com/moon

About the Author: As a children’s author, Serene Chia has always been passionate about creating stories that educate and inspire young minds. Her book, Mommy, Mommy, Where is the Moon?, was inspired by her daughter’s fascination with the moon. One of their favorite things to do was to spend time looking for the moon every night. Sometimes they found it, other times they didn’t. Along the way, they pick up cool moon facts like why the moon changes shape and sometimes hides.

This book combines the warmth of a mother-daughter bond with bits of science sprinkled within. It also comes with a lesson plan for 6-year-olds, a read-aloud video, and coloring sheets that make it easy to incorporate into your home or classroom lessons. Visit serenechia.com/moon.

Website: serenechia.com
Instagram: instagram.com/serenechiaauthor

Thank you, Serene, for these science-focused activities and books!

Author Guest Post: “Tackling the Blank Page with the WHY Method” by Christine Virnig, Author of A Bite Above the Rest

by
Share

“Tackling the Blank Page with the WHY Method”

I’m extremely lucky to be able to run two writing clubs at the library where I work—one for TEENs and one for 9–12-year-olds. It’s so fun to sit there and soak in the young writers’ enthusiasm, their energy, their creativity. But while some of them are bursting with ideas, others have a hard time getting started. They stare at the blank page in front of them and don’t know where to begin.

I very much commiserate with this can’t-figure-out-how-to-start group. I also have the hardest time coming up with ideas. Nothing ever seems unique enough, interesting enough, engaging enough to bother turning it into a book that anyone but my mom would want to read. So how do I move beyond the blank page to get at least SOMETHING written down? I use what I call the WHY method.

What is this magical WHY method? It’s nothing more than starting with a shred of an idea—such as a character (like a girl with a peanut allergy), a place (like a haunted woods), a villain (like a vomit-breathed math teacher), or a theme (like evolving friendships)—and then asking myself “why, why, why, why” until I finally have enough of an idea to start writing. To walk you through this WHY method, let’s use my debut middle grade novel, A Bite Above the Rest, as an example.

The shred of an idea I started with was a character who just popped into my head one day: a boy who was walking around with a wooden stake in his back pocket because he was terrified he was about to encounter a vampire or witch or werewolf. I named this boy Caleb, I declared him to be eleven years old, and then I started asking why.

Why is Caleb afraid he’ll run into a vampire or werewolf or witch? Does he simply have a vivid imagination, so he sees a bat and thinks VAMPIRE or sees a full moon and thinks WEREWOLF? Or does he live in a world known to contain vampires and witches, and everyone around him is similarly terrified. OR… is he afraid he’ll run into a werewolf or witch because he’s seen them, and yet nobody else is afraid? That last option intrigued me the most… but I still needed to ask more why questions to flesh out the idea.

Why is nobody around him afraid? Are the vampires and werewolves somehow invisible to everyone but my main character? Are the creatures hiding, and my main character is the only who’s ever encountered them?  OR… does everyone around him also see the monsters, but they don’t perceive them as scary? Again, I went with option number 3. And then I asked why yet again.

Why doesn’t anyone else see the vampires or witches as scary? Are most werewolves and vampires friendly, and my character is alone in being afraid of them? Is everybody but Caleb a monster, so of course they aren’t afraid of each other? OR… what if everyone else just thinks the witches and vampires are regular people wearing costumes? Option three was the most compelling to me, but I had to keep going with the whys…

Why do people think the monsters are just regular humans in costumes? Is there a haunted house in town that employs oodles of costumed workers? Does my main character live in an alternative universe where costumes are as ho-hum as jeans and a t-shirt? OR… what if he finds himself in a Halloween tourist town—the Halloween equivalent of the North Pole? It can be a place where Halloween decorations are kept up all year long; where the bakery bursts with mouth-watering, pumpkin-flavored treats; where the library’s mascot can be something ridiculous… like a Book Banshee. How cool would that be?!? I only needed to ask one more why before I was ready to start writing.

Why does my main character come to this town in the first place?  Was he born there? Is he a tourist? Is he visiting his grandma for a week? OR… has he just moved there? As an outsider (and an anxious, fearful one at that), he’ll be more likely to notice things about the town that others overlook. That others take as “normal.”

I went with option three, and BOOM. After asking just five why questions, I had my character, my setting, and the start of an adventure. Did I have it all figured out? Not at all! Why, I still didn’t know if the vampires and werewolves were just costumed humans—and Caleb had it all wrong—or if they were actual monsters (and honestly, I didn’t figure out the answer to this question until I was half way through writing the first draft). But nonetheless, these why questions were enough to get me started. They allowed me to fill up that first blank page with something other than a blinking curser.

So, when you have students who can’t decide what to write—when they’re frustrated and stuck and just want to give up—maybe have them try the WHY method and see if it helps them too. Why does that hedgehog talk? Why do the woods feel spooky? Why did that girl’s best friend just call her a name? Why? Why? Why?

And hopefully, all these why questions will help them fill their blank pages too!

Published August 6th, 2024 by Aladdin

About the Book: A boy moves to a Halloween-themed town only to realize there may be more to the tourist trap than meets the eye in this fast-paced romp of a middle grade novel perfect for fans of The Last Kids on Earth and Escape from Mr. Lemoncello’s Library!

When Caleb’s mom decides they are moving to her childhood home in Wisconsin, Caleb is not thrilled. Moving schools, states, and time zones would be bad enough, but Mom’s hometown is Samhain, a small and ridiculously kitschy place where every day is Halloween.

Caleb is not a fan of Halloween when it only happens once a year, so Halloween-obsessed Samhain is really not the place for him. How is he supposed to cope with kids wearing costumes to school every single day? And how about the fact that the mayor is so committed to the bit that City Hall is only open from sundown to sunup to accommodate his so-called vampirism? Sure enough, Caleb becomes an outcast at school for refusing to play along with the spooky tradition like the other sixth graders. Luckily, he manages to find a friend in fellow misfit Tai, and just in time, because things are getting weird in Samhain…or make that weirder.

But there’s no way the mayor is an actual vampire, and their teacher absolutely cannot really be a werewolf—right? Caleb discovers Samhain is so much stranger than he ever could have imagined. As one of the only people who realizes what’s happening, can he save a town that doesn’t want saving?

About the Author: Christine Virnig (she/her/hers) is a fan of books, candy, spooky stories, poop jokes, and coffee…in no particular order. As a former physician, Christine now spends her days writing books, reading books, and working at a library where she is surrounded by books. Christine lives in southern Wisconsin with her husband, two daughters, a ridiculous number of dust bunnies, and one incredibly lazy cat. You can visit her on the web at ChristineVirnig.com.

Thank you, Christine, for this hint on how to get started when being taunted by that blank page!

Author Guest Post: “On Writing the Unexpected Narrator” by Jordan Kopy, Author of Theodora Hendrix and the Monstrous League of Monsters

by
Share

“On Writing the Unexpected Narrator”

My debut middle grade novel, Theodora Hendrix and the Monstrous League of Monsters, follows the adventures of one Theodora Hendrix, who isn’t your average ten-year-old: her best friend is a talking, top-hat-wearing tarantula named Sherman. She reads torat cards (think tarot cards, but magical). Oh, and she lives in a haunted mansion full of monsters, breaking Headquarters’ Number One Rule: Keep Monsters Hidden from Humans.  When a series of anonymous letters threatens to reveal her secret, Theodora must follow a series of clues to track down the source. If she fails, Theodora will be sent to live with humans (the horror, the horror!) and her family will end up in the Deepest, Darkest Prisons of Transylvania. Forever.

Like many authors, I’m often asked where I got the idea for this book. The story goes like this: my mom and I were watching one of our favorite movies, “My Cousin Vinny”.  Fred Gwynne, who played the judge, also played Herman Munster on “The Munsters”, a black and white television show from the 1960s. That fact must have been in my head – probably because my mom mentioned it a dozen-odd times – when I went to sleep, because I woke up the next morning with the idea for a story about a ten-year-old girl being raised by a bumbling family of monster superheroes. I jumped out of bed and grabbed my laptop; two hours later, I had written the book’s opening chapters. Over the next few days, I outlined the plot – at least, I knew where the story started and how it ended, sketched out my ensemble cast of characters, and sorted out the book’s main themes. But what I hadn’t sorted out was my narrator.

Choosing the narrator is one of the most critical decisions an author makes when crafting their story, as this is the vehicle by which your tale is relayed to your reader. There’s much to consider:

For starters, who is the narrator – who’s telling us this story? It can be anyone, really – the main character, a third party, an animal sidekick…When thinking through the various options, considering point of view can be super helpful: most novels typically employ first or third person point of view. In first person, the narrator is directly involved in the story, sharing the events that occurred according to their own recollection or experience, using “I” or “we” to describe the action. A well-known example of this is the Percy Jackson and the Olympians series by Rick Riordan. In third person, the narrator isn’t directly involved in the story, using “he”, “she”, or “they” to describe the action. Third person is often (but not always!) omniscient, meaning that the narrator is all-knowing. A (very!) well-known example of this is the Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling. Along with point of view, the narrator’s perspective – i.e., their individual perceptions of and interactions with the world at large – should also be considered: a narrator whose perception differs from that of the main character will provide a different experience than one in which a similar worldview is shared. Together, point of view and perception can help to define the best narrator for a given tale; the former tells us the “what”, the latter the “how”.

I had no clear sense of my narrator when I first started writing Theodora Hendrix and the Monstrous League of Monsters. So, I started thinking about perspective and point of view – and kept waffling between the two. I liked the intimacy of first person as it allows readers to experience events with the main character – a technique which is particularly successful with young readers who can, perhaps, more easily envision themselves in that character’s shoes. In contrast, I liked the omniscience of third person as allows the narrator to hint at things yet to come which the main character couldn’t possibly know; this works especially well in novels in which there’s some degree of mystery, which I knew my story would have. In the end, I decided to take a (perhaps not so small) risk and combine the two. The result is a rather unexpected narrator:

In the prologue and the epilogue, my narrator’s point of view is first person. He often breaks the fourth wall, speaking directly to the reader. He’s also mysterious: he declines to introduce himself at the beginning of the tale, stating that his identity is for him to know and “for you to find out”; it is only on the very last page that he finally reveals himself. In contrast, the main body of the novel is largely relayed in deep third person, where the narrator closely mimics Theodora’s perspective. To bridge the gap between the two, he occasionally interrupts the story, breaking the fourth wall to share his own thoughts and insights directly with the reader.

To make this process a little less painful going forward, I’ve made myself a “narrator checklist” which I peruse whenever I begin a new manuscript. Some of the questions I consider are:

  1. Who is telling this story? Is it one person or multiple people?
  2. Why are they telling it and not someone else?
  3. Where do they stand in relation to the story – are they directly involved in the action or observing it from the outside?
  4. What information do readers need to follow the plot, and who can best convey this to them?
  5. Comparatively, what information should be withheld or obscured or obscured from readers, allowing for potential misdirection?

Sometimes, choosing a narrator is a matter of trial and error. If the plotting is tight, the characters well-developed, and the pacing appropriate, it may be worth taking another look at your narrator. Changing the point of view and perspective can feel more than a little overwhelming, but it’s worth it in the end: the right narrator can make all the difference.

Published July 16th, 2024 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

About the Book: If you think monsters don’t exist, just ask Theodora Hendrix. The start of a brilliantly funny new series, perfect for fans of Amelia Fang.
The first rule of the Monstrous League of Monsters is: Keep monsters hidden from humans. But when zombie George and his cat companion Bandit find an abandoned baby, they can’t leave her to be eaten by hobgoblins. So they spirit her home where she quickly becomes part of the family. Fast-forward ten years, and young Theodora doesn’t seem too scarred by her monstrous upbringing. But now a series of anonymous letters suggest that someone is about to reveal their secret. If Theodora doesn’t act fast, she may lose her family for ever…

“Readers will be irresistibly drawn into the captivating world of Kopy‘s monster-filled middle-grade novel, where the promise of tantalizing secrets sets the stage for adventure. …a delightful blend of whimsy and mystery … lively characters and light mystery, the narrator imparts a particularly mischievous charm, with cheeky asides…With playful, comical illustrations reminiscent of the Addams Family that vividly bring the scenes and characters to life, this delightful, cheeky romp is ideal for those who relish eerie tales with a humorous twist.” – Booklist

About the Author: Jordan Kopy is a born and raised New Yorker who now lives in London with her husband and poorly behaved (but lovable) cat. A financial services professional by day (no idea how that happened), Jordan spends her nights with ghouls, witches, and the occasional evil hag. She’s also the author of Theodora Hendrix and the Curious Case of the Cursed Beetle and Theodora Hendrix and the Snare of the Shadowmongers.

Thank you, Jordan, for this post looking at the process of choosing a narrator!

Author Guest Post & Giveaway!: “Crafting Multi-dimensional Characters” by A. Kidd, Author of Yasuko and the Dream Eater

by
Share

“Crafting Multi-dimensional Characters”

When I visit schools, part of my presentation includes a character sketch activity with students. Not only is it fun and interactive, but building a character forms the basis on which the rest of your story revolves around. Even with an intriguing plot, you still need a dynamic character to follow. Someone you can relate to and root for. We all know the cliches: the princess, the knight, the dragon. But sometimes it’s good to mix it up a little. The princess knight or, better yet, the princess dragon is far more interesting.

This concept works well with my new picture book, Yasuko and the Dream Eater, which is inspired by a Japanese legend about the dream eater, who eats bad dreams when called 3 times. What makes this character so unusual is that traditionally it is made up of five different animals. It has the head and trunk of an elephant, the eyes and ears of a rhino, the tail of an ox, the arms and legs of a tiger, and the belly of a bear. It also has a curly mane that looks like a lion, although it isn’t part lion. Some kids think it is part unicorn, because the mane has blue and pink colors shimmering within it.

We talk about culture and diversity, and how having multiple backgrounds makes you unique. Just like my main character, Yasuko, is both Japanese and American, the dream eater is made up of many different animals.  And just like a character can be a cat or a dog or a mouse, it could also be made up of all these animals, which would be unique indeed! In the story, Yasuko feels different when visiting her grandmother in Japan. Making the origami crane is not the same as making paper airplanes at home in America. She also misses her goodnight hug from her parents. In Japan, family members often pat children on the head to show affection rather than offer a hug at bedtime. By the end, Yasuko learns that she can connect to her grandmother in other ways, and that clasping hands together can also feel like a tiny hug. So with our own stories, we can seek to not only show how our characters are unique but why that makes them special.

Try this with your students: Using a large pad of paper or wipe board, ask your students to name 5 creatures (including animals, mythical beings, robots, aliens, etc.) List those on the board, then talk about at least one defining trait for each. Then it is your turn (or perhaps another student can volunteer) to make up a new animal or creature based on all 5 listed. This is where it gets interesting! But kids love to see the results. They can also each draw one on their own. Or for younger children, you can provide puzzle piece cutouts of different animals, split in 3 pieces. Children can take turns making new, mixed up animals, by rearranging the animal parts.

Take it one step further: You can also talk about the basic elements of story. Students often ask me where to start when writing. All they really need to know is who their character is, what they want, and what gets in the way. You can often accomplish this by establishing what your character’s interests are as well as what scares them. One group of students said their character, who looked like a dust bunny, liked to play with Barbies but was afraid of cheese. Now this may sound silly, but the basis of many great stories starts with asking the question, What if? What if the dust bunny wanted to play with her Barbies, but a hunk of sharp cheddar cheese left by a mouse was guarding the dolls. How can she surpass the obstacle to get what she wants?

Creating dynamic characters goes beyond physical traits. They can have brown hair and blue eyes or blue hair and brown eyes, but we also need to know their personality. That is where learning their likes and dislikes comes in, as well as how they behave and why. It’s especially important to move beyond the cliché. You can have a main character who wants to be in the talent show, but the villain or antagonist is a bully preventing them from joining. What if you turned it around and made the main character the bully instead? Or try giving your character two opposing qualities that they are battling with throughout the book. We can go back to the princess knight who wants to fight dragons but also wear fancy dresses. Maybe she isn’t allowed to go to the ball unless she puts down her sword and forgoes her helmet. Or the dragon princess who isn’t accepted because she’s green and has scales and doesn’t fit the stereotypical look of what a princess should be. This would form an internal struggle as well as an external struggle. Just like Yasuko in my book, how can your characters learn to accept both parts of themselves?

I think the key is to teach kids that we’re all basically complex characters in our own lives. And none of us wants to be judged, liked, or disliked based on just one trait. So if we create more interesting and complex characters in our stories, we’ll be representing a more diverse and realistic picture of the world. The more intriguing and unique our characters are, the more fascinating their stories will be, and the more likely readers will want to turn pages to find out what happens to them. Especially because the stories we read can help us learn something about our own lives and how to move about and thrive in a complex world.

GIVEAWAY!

A. Kidd author would be delighted to give away one copy of her new book, Yasuko and the Dream Eater. To participate, simply leave a comment on this blog post and a contact email. One lucky winner will be chosen at random. You must reside in the US.

Published April 11th, 2023 by Quiet Storm Publishing

About the Book: Yasuko has the same bad dream every night while visiting her grandmother in Japan, so her grandmother suggests she call the dream eater for help. When the dream eater is still hungry after devouring Yasuko’s nightmare, Yasuko must stop it from gobbling up her good dream too.

Inspired by a Japanese legend, Yasuko and the Dream Eater will help kids dealing with nightmares as well as celebrate what it means to be part of a bicultural family. The book is fully illustrated and includes an author’s note, cultural note, and instructions for making origami.

About the Author: A. Kidd lives in the US but has travelled to Japan many times to visit family and for sightseeing. Japan feels like her second home. Although she dreams often, she hasn’t needed to call the baku yet. She is also the author of the middle grade fantasy, The Healing Star.

A. Kidd is available for author visits! For more information, please email her at a.kiddwrites@gmail.com or visit her website at www.akiddwrites.com. She loves to inspire young writers. Her motto is, if A. Kidd can do it, so can they!

Thank you for this fun activity, examples, and the GIVEAWAY!